2. In the same way the _Quality_ of the judgment lies entirely within the
province of reason, and is not an adumbration of any law of that
understanding which makes perception possible, _i.e._, it does not point
to it. The nature of abstract concepts, which is just the nature of the
reason itself objectively comprehended, carries with it the possibility of
uniting and separating their spheres, as was already explained in the
first book, and upon this possibility, as their presupposition, rest the
universal laws of thought of identity and contradiction, to which I have
given the name of _metalogical_ truths, because they spring purely from
the reason, and cannot be further explained. They determine that what is
united must remain united, and what is separated must remain separate,
thus that what is established cannot at the same time be also abolished,
and thus they presuppose the possibility of the combination and separation
of spheres, _i.e._, of judgment. This, however, lies, according to its
_form_, simply and solely in the reason, and this _form_ has not, like the
_content_ of the judgments, been brought over from the perceptible
knowledge of the understanding, and therefore there is no correlative or
analogue of it to be looked for there. After the perception has been
brought about through the understanding and for the understanding, it
exists complete, subject to no doubt nor error, and therefore knows
neither assertion nor denial; for it expresses itself, and has not, like
the abstract knowledge of the reason, its value and content in its mere
relation to something outside of it, according to the principle of the
ground of knowing. It is, therefore, pure reality; all negation is foreign
to its nature, can only be added on through reflection, and just on this
account remains always in the province of abstract thought.
To the affirmative and negative Kant adds the infinite judgment, making
use of a crotchet of the old scholastics, an ingeniously invented
stop-gap, which does not even require to be explained, a blind window,
such as many others he made for the sake of his architectonic symmetry.
3. Under the very wide conception of _Relation_ Kant has brought three
entirely different properties of judgments, which we must, therefore,
examine singly, in order to recognise their origin.